Ian Boddy’s Free Space.

I get offers for a lot of free music downloads at Echoes, most of them from electronic musicians. In fact, you’ll find one near the top of the EchoesFans wall on Facebook. And for me, most of them don’t get beyond the on-line listening phase if that. But England’s Ian Boddy isn’t one of those musicians. He’s been a staple of Echoes programming from the beginning, releasing consistently exhilarating and exploratory music for three decades. His DiN label has hosted recordings by Erik Wollo, Robert Rich, Parallel Worlds and many more. All of it is music that’s made with purpose.

Ian himself is probably the leading disciple of sequencer based music, but he’s gone well beyond most retro-space rockers who sound like they swallowed the 70s Tangerine Dream catalog whole and can’t shit it out. Ian, however, has evolved that sound into his own vocabulary with 21st century sound design, a judiciously deployed melodic gift and the dynamic twists of an Escher painting spun through a fractal filter, . Which is to say, this new Free Download from Ian’s DiN label is not to be missed. It collects music from the last 9 DiN Digital albums and opens with three great tracks from Ian, the unusually pastoral and mellotron laced forest walks of “Earthbound” and “Summer Lawn Daze” and the knotty title track from The Mechanics of Thought.

That’s followed by Dub Atomic’s “Syntax” a rollicking romp through post-techno exuberance. and a great collaboration between Ian and Bernhard Wöstheinrich. There’s more vintage electornics with a screaming sequencer excursion from Arc, Ian’s collaboration with Mark Shreeve and spacier tracks by Markus Reuter & Zero Ohms and Memory Geist. Like previous collections, it’s beautifully sequenced as well.

You only have until September’s end to go to the DiN Bandcampsite and download this collection for free. Then go buy some of the great albums that Ian has released over the last 30 years.